Great Day For Canadian Copyright: Supreme Court Issues Five (Count 'Em) Rulings Supporting Fair Dealing And Fewer Tariffs

from the proud-day dept

Canadian copyright is undergoing huge changes. The copyright reform bill is very close to becoming law, bringing with it some fantastic new fair dealing provisions (though unfortunately along with a significant downside in the form of digital locks rules), and now the Supreme Court has stepped in with a series of major rulings that reinforce users' rights and begin the process of cleaning up the mess that is Canada's copyright tariff system. This morning, the court published five separate judgements in cases related to tariffs and royalties, and each one contains significant victories for smarter copyright law.

There is a lot to dig into in this series of rulings, and some complex legal questions involved in some portions, but each one also makes clear statements. In the first case, between Alberta schools and the copyright collective Access Copyright, the court found that photocopies for classroom use can be covered by the "research" provisions of fair dealing. In the second case, between videogame publishers and a music collection society, the court found that selling videogames does not constitute a new public performance of the music they contain, and thus does not require a public performance royalty (yes—the Copyright Board and Federal Court of Appeals had both previously ruled that transmitting videogames with music in them counts as "communication to the public"). Similarly, in the third case, the court found that films which contain music are also not public performances requiring an additional royalty (on that one, the lower courts had gotten it right and also refused to certify the tariff). In the fourth case, the court affirmed that while streaming music to users is a public performance, offering music for download is not—so services like iTunes also don't have to pay additional performance royalties. Finally, in the ruling that may get the most attention, the court found that 30 second previews of songs provided by online music services qualify as fair dealing for the purposes of research—a battle that has been going on for a long time in Canada and is now, finally, put to rest.

Collectives cannot assume that they will be entitled to an additional "layer" of remunerated rights every time there is a new method of delivery. Technological neutrality matters.

The Court said what it meant and meant what is said in CCH v. LSUC in 2004 and will move forward from there - not be pushed backwards.

Users have rights that must be given a "large and liberal interpretation". Copyright doesn't exist solely for collectives.

Educators are in a "symbiotic" relationship with students and the Copyright Act serves the goal of education, which includes access to essential material

Copyright law is both about "protection" and "access"

Copyright law is about "dissemination"

"Research" is not restricted to "creative purposes". Consumer research counts too. Research can even be for "personal interest". There is no absolute requirement for "transformative" use in Canada

The user's purpose is the one that counts in fair dealing

Practices that increase the sale of work cannot be said to have a negative impact on the work

The concept "public" must be considered in light of new technology, technological neutrality and the purpose of the legislation. The fact that communication may be interactive on an individual basis does not mean that it cannot be considered to be to the "public"

When the statute uses a word such as "excludes", it means it. The word is not superfluous.

Parliament did not intend to "recognize a superior expertise of the [Copyright] Board relative to the courts with respect to legal questions arising under the Copyright Act". On copyright questions of "first instance", the Board will get no more deference that any court would get. In other words, the Board must be "correct". It will not be sufficient that it merely be "reasonable"

One of the groups that is likely to be hit the hardest by these rulings is Access Copyright. We've covered the fact that Canada's university association struck a terrible deal with Access Copyright for the clearance of educational materials, and several major Canadian unversities are refusing to sign on. This Supreme Court case was not directly dealing with that situation (it covers only primary and secondary schools), but the ruling contains a complete tear-down of Access Copyright's entire business model which applies every bit as much to universities and colleges. Michael Geist walks through the point-by-point dismantling of all Access Copyright's standard arguments against fair dealing, leaving them very few legs to stand on moving forward. For those universities that plan to clear their own copyrights, this is a very big win—for those that didn't have the resources to keep fighting after the AUCC abandoned them, it just highlights how bad of a deal they got.

Copyright law in Canada has its problems—first and foremost the extremely bad digital locks rules that will come into effect with Bill C-11. But, increasingly, and most notably at the Supreme Court level, we've also been making significant strides in the right direction, using legal language that displays a clear understanding of both modern realities and the need for balance in copyright law. There are still important battles to be fought, but today the Supreme Court gave us a huge arsenal of new weapons.

Re:

TPP cannot overrule Supreme Court of Canada rulings. When the Court says it has no intention to be pushed back on this, then enforces that by repeating it there is something to smile about here. Broadly.

Re: Re:

It's not that simple.

The TPPA binds signatories to rulings made by panels that exist outside any country's courts and which are not bound by any country's legislative or common law. The financial implications could force the Canadian government to step in and legislate around court rulings.

Re: Re: Re:

It might, which would mean another trip to the Supreme Court and the merry-go-round will start again.

The text of the rulings indicates that the court isn't backing down on this. It would make it very, very interesting to see a clash between the Constitution and the Court on one side and TPP on the other over little things like extraterritoriality on the other side.

The government could try to get around it by amending C-11 so that it falls in line with the TPP if Canada signs on.

Unlike ACTA, TPP isn't being discussed totally in the dark though it's very opaque. For now. Nor is it as "sure" a thing as ACTA was supposed to be.

Things get a little more interesting now that Iceland has told VISA to honour donation payments to Wikileaks restoring at least some funding to that site. If that holds TPP may become a leaky ship indeed given reports that some countries aren't happy with the way things are going there. It could become quite interesting. And, entertaining. :-)

Re:

I have images of the RIAA/MPAA/etc. lawyers, when confronted with the questions about why they are losing court cases, break out and start singing "Blame Canada!" (Of course, while also failing to pay the performance, mechanical, and/or synchronization royalties.)

Re: Not a great day at all...

I'm afraid I disagree. The "public benefit" view that you reject in that piece is exactly the view I take on copyright. Your reasons for rejection are spurious, too - you claim that the view equates to making sure the slave has just enough bread to survive and keep working, but that's ridiculous. Musicians are not slaves. There has to be enough bread to make them pursue music, and that is more than just "enough to survive". There has to be opportunity for growth, success and potential wealth, or nobody will do the job. Those of us with the "public benefit" view of copyright do indeed feel that there will likely be fewer multimillionaire superstar musicians in the future, but that there will also be more musicians making a comfortable living wage, and a LOT more making a supplementary wage by making music part time. And that's under current economic conditions. Take a look around you - a lot of people can't even find that in any profession right now. If the economy were to start booming, opportunities in music would grow along with those in countless other fields.

You have compared this view to socialism, as I know you like to do, and I cannot possibly offer a better answer to that than William Patry's response to you when you made a similar comparison involving his ideas.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

It's not, unless the entire link he's linking to is satire. That link seems so ridiculously retarded it's possible, but I doubt it.

That poster is someone with a direct conflict of interest in the matter, someone who (intends to) disproportionately benefit from IP laws commercially (not someone who benefits as a member of the public). As such, his posts should mostly be ignored and perhaps even considered spam/advertising.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

Artists aren't slaves to their fans. They are slaves to their distributors who like the plantation owners of the past act in their own interests. They don't care whether the slave flourishes or not. Just that the slave makes them money.

The market on the other hand cares very much about the ethics of the system and what is "fair trade" for goods.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

"There has to be enough bread to make them pursue music, and that is more than just "enough to survive". There has to be opportunity for growth, success and potential wealth, or nobody will do the job."

People made music long before we knew what commerce and trade were. People will always make music. It is something we do, including "non-musicians," when we get together AFTER WORK.

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

Yes upon re-reading that sentence I should clarify.

I am talking about music in a somewhat economic sense - making music as a career and as an economic transaction.

I have absolutely NO fear that people would every stop making music altogether, under any circumstances. But -- I also think it's good that there are opportunities for some people to be professional musicians and I would like to see those opportunities expand.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

If this was the case, then we would not need any copyright laws AT ALL.

Which, in fact, just proves my point.

Copyright laws is what allows authors to release their works to the public (directly or indirectly) while being able to claim: "It's MINE" to the extent that they don't feel comfortable giving up the control.

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

How is that?
Exclusion laws are to exclude other from something, the only threat to releasing anything to the public is the granted monopolies that are granted to authors.

Without copycrap people would still release their works to the public and would still find profits from their work, they just wouldn't be able to stop others from doing the same thing, which is not a bad thing at all.

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

But if all copyright is about is "it's mine"(your claim), then copyright is utterly useless for that. Once you release it people *will* make copies. If they don't you're an utter failure as an artist because no one likes your stuff.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

The simple reality is that long before copyright existed authors wrote, composers composed, sculpture was made -- the entire concept of culture as we know it came to be.

An outgrowth of the Agricultural Revolution which spawned the need for writing and so on. Which isn't to say that hunter-gatherer societies don't have culture -- they do. But what we've come to know as civilized culture required agriculture to appear.

Culture as we know it didn't only arise without copyright it flourished.

Invention didn't appear after patents came about, it too flourished. Invention, as much as anything, is the response to a need or to simply "scratch an itch" where the itch is "I can do it better than that". Or by sheer accident. Take Kitty Litter for that one. (Yeah, I know, Kitty Litter was patented almost as soon as the guy selling it figured out that all kinds of people wanted his fullers earth concoction.)

I'm still trying to figure out, with some horror, what would have happened if the guy who came up with the wheel could have patented it and then enforced that patent on the rest of us.

Each of these concepts -- copyright and patents -- confer a temporary right of monopoly in return to contributing to the wider public good. There is no natural right to either and no natural right to monopoly which allows one to say "it's MINE" until the universe dies which seems your viewpoint.

And neither has the slightest connection with Marxist/Leninist/Maoist Communism or the disaster that they are/were. Oh, let me rephrase something. More accurately it's Stalinist/Maoist Communism which betrayed Marxist theory concerning just who would control what, turned it on its head and became and excuse for some of the most murderous tyrannies we've known. Sadly, some free market capitalist societies that have had zero regulation have done the same. No one is pure here.

My point here is that long before structures were adopted that, for all practical purposes, became exclusionary culture and invention flourished.

Equally sadly, in many, if not most cases, these exclusionary practices have removed whatever control an author, innovator or inventor may have had in theory are removed in practice as in order to be published or capitalize an invention, the exclusionary rights had to be assigned to someone else removing the control you so value. Or claim to. Unless you're suffering from an ideological blindness/delusion. Not that uncommon. I've been known to suffer from that from time to time myself.

Exclusionary rights or practices are as offensive to freedom and culture as tyrannies pretending to be the protectors of "the working class" were and are.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

If you feel that copyright is all about "because it's MINE" then it's very easy to keep control of your works. Don't release them to the public.

There are laws which state nobody can take that which is legally mine. Thanks to such laws, I can leave my expensive laptop in a public area for several days and expect it to still be there when I go back for it.

Ok, so who in their right mind actually believes leaving my property in a public place for several days and expecting it to still be there several days later is completely unrealistic? The simple fact is that once you are no longer in possession of that which belongs to you, it is no longer yours to control no matter what the law says. It's just a reality you have to accept whether you like it or not. Is it fair? Of course not. But who in their right mind actually believes we live in a universe that's fair?

Our world and everything in it doesn't care what we think or want. It's an imperfect universe that we have very little control over and the sooner people accept that, the better off they'll be. Instead of trying to bend reality to your will, accept reality and adapt to it instead. If this means figuring out new business models, then that is what you do.

Look at life on this planet for instance. No matter how harsh and unwelcoming the world has been over the eons, life adapted and thrived as a result. Those that did not / would not inevitably died out. The nature of business follows those exact same rules. Wail and moan all you want about life being unfair, nature simply doesn't care.

If a tornado destroys your house, you don't sit there in denial, screaming at the universe in the hopes it will some how play fair and make it up to you. You adapt by building one that's hopefully more resilient. Same goes for business models. The old ones no longer work? Get off your lazy self righteous ass and create a new one that does! Sure it sucks, but nobody is going to do it for you and trying to legislate the world to remain static is like passing laws that make it illegal for tornadoes to pass through your town. Dumb and destined to fail.

Re: Not a great day at all...

Re: Not a great day at all...

Evidently you have not familiarized yourself with the history of the Statue of Anne which is the basis of our copyright regime.

I won't bother repeating the history prior to the Statue of Anne but at least you could look up the title:
"A Bill for the Encouragement of Learning and for Securing the Property of Copies of Books to the rightful Owners thereof"

From the beginning there was a balanced emphasis on the public good and on the rights of those who owned the manuscripts (books) in question. The owner of those rights need not be creators. The public good is learning which is where the Supreme Court largely ruled.

Authors, songwriters, composers and so on unless extremely well known rarely retain their copyright. In order to get published, recorded, performed and so on they need to assign their copyrights. Not something a lot of creators find to their taste but none the less that's the reality. For reference see George Harrison - "Only A Northern Song".

Your world, wherein creators hold copyright and control doesn't exist. As you say you your site creators shouldn't be forced to surrender those rights under duress yet publishers do just that and have since 1710 with the blessing of the courts. Fair dealing, that part of the regime intended to encourage learning, has been in place since 1710 as well. Early rulings in England, repeatedly rejected the notion that copyright was primarily concerned with being exclusionary it had the dual concern for learning.

While your ideal world, if your site is any indication, is that copyright exists only to be exclusionary doesn't and never has existed.

While publishing rarely leaves creators in deep debt as the recording industry arranges for its newly signed creators it can leave the author in some debt. That is the book needs to sell enough copies to cover whatever advance the author may get while the author relies on the publisher to promote the book. It's very rare than an unknown author gets much if any of an advance on sales unlike the situation that exists in the recording industry where it's common.

Your dismissal of fair dealing as some form of socialism is, then, so much utter and complete hogwash.

Copyright, as we know it, from the Statue of Anne is a balance between public and private good no matter what you think or want it to be.

If you were to get your desire for a totally exclusionary form of copyright then what support there is for the concept would utterly vanish. Nor, as you assert, is all creation the result of some god-given genius or talent. That one has been taken apart by courts over and over again as extremists like yourself have attempted to establish perpetual copyright.

The Supreme Court has ruled on the law as it exists and will exist when C-11 becomes law and has since 1710. Strangely I agree completely with your assertion that creators should be recognized for their creations but I totally reject your way of doing that.

And no...copyright is not "because it's MINE" in its entirety nor is it all about "don't like it - don't use it.". As a lawyer you should know better. Unless you've been breathing in too much diesel exhaust from what's left of the marshalling yards right by your building or the ships idling in Vancouver harbour.

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

I think you are overly obsessing over and focusing on Soviet structures, which no-one here is proposing - and I certainly don't believe Patry is. Most people support fair recompense for artists, while being all to aware that copyright is not a 'right' to an unlimited gravy train unto the seventh generation, as it is becoming today. That is more akin to socialism than capitalism, I would argue! No-one else in society gets paid for 'not working' - only for the work they do (except the 1% - guess that's the capitalist angle).

Many people do not feel that the Statute of Anne is an 'unjust' system - indeed, would it have become the basis of US copyright in the Constitution if it were inherently 'unjust'? It doesn't mean that it cannot be improved upon, but at its core, it is the basis of existing law.

Like it or not, it is stated in the Constitution that copyright is for "the Progress of Science", i.e. learning and the public good. It is irrelevant (unless you have an obsession with everything having a dollar value) whether it is monetised or even monetisable. Copyright protects this comment of mine. By your argument, because I have no hope or expectation of making money from it, it is not only 'worthless' as part of 'culture' but shouldn't have copyright protection.

Times change, technology changes, and attitudes change. The law needs to change with time as well. You cannot legislate against behaviour that the public at large do not agree with - just ask the framers of the Fugitive Slave Act how successful that was, or Prohibition!

Re: Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

I'm far from saying the Statue of Anne is/was perfect. What I'm saying is that it attempted to strike a balance between the public good -- Education -- and the private good -- a grant (not a natural right) of a temporary monopoly for rights holders.

Keep in mind that I said temporary, not permanent, not eternal and certainly not the joke copyright has become wherein your creator (authors), in the vast majority of instances, has to assign their copyright simply to get published to the publishing company thereby completely giving up the right you want them to have of control over their works. They end up with none.

For the most part it worked as long as publishing and production remained what it more or less was in 1710. Then came things like sneaker net, pre-Internet BBS systems and then the Web, high speed connections everywhere and the entire set of assumptions around production, control and exclusion or inclusion began to fall apart until we get to today where it has fallen apart.

Oh yeah, and programs the enable just about anyone to typeset and produce their own ebooks too. Skills may be lacking in many cases but the means to produce and reproduce are there in abundance.

Re: Not a great day at all...

Re: Not a great day at all...

You haven't read the constitution have you. You haven't read anything that the founding fathers wrote.

IP laws are about promoting the progress. They're about serving a public benefit. That you're turning them into something else, that you're making them about your personal profit margins, is more reason they should be abolished.

Re: Re: Not a great day at all...

In this context the US Constitution is or may be a reference point but as we're talking about the Supreme Court of Canada and the Canadian Constitution, both written and unwritten parts thereof, it doesn't apply.

That's why I fall back on the Statue of Anne and it's intended purpose of a balance between public and private good which, indirectly, leads us to the same place you're at.

"Research" is not restricted to "creative purposes". Consumer research counts too. Research can even be for "personal interest". There is no absolute requirement for "transformative" use in Canada

This one fascinates me. That basically sounds pretty identical to how I used napster in the very early days before the music industry went all pyscho on their fans. I used it as a consumer research tool during the week to decide what CDs to buy in town at the weekend and which bands were worth booking tickets for. So does file sharing count as "consumer research" because it enables people to decide best how to spend their music interest budget at the weekend and after work?

I'm so happy that our Supreme Court hasn't been tainted by associates of the RIAA/MPAA or their sister organizations.

I can only hope that this court will also rule with as much integrity and common sense when the inevitable cases about digital locks, TPP provisions, and/or other copyright issues are brought before it.

Re:

TPP provisions that affect the copyright act would require the government of the day to introduce a bill in the Commons amending the Act. It doesn't happen automatically.

These rulings and the language used in them make it clear the Court is having the final word here unless that happens. TPP can't change that. And their view that Fair Dealing ought to be interpreted broadly and liberally would be hard to reverse later on unless the minority had some equally strong wording or that the legal ground changes substantially.

Re: Response from Access Copyright

Heh. Yeah, nice try on their part but not very convincing... The vast majority are not /directly/ affected by this decision, but the language in the ruling opens up the doors to a WAY stronger fair dealing argument in all educational/research situations. Plus, education is going to be an explicit fair dealing provision under C-11.

Their response did actually lead me to clarify something in the post though - I had said that the court found classroom copies to be fair dealing, but that's not quite true. They said that they CAN be fair dealing and sent it back to the copyright board. However, their language makes it pretty clear that they think it is fair dealing - and also, they really hammer on the "large and liberal" point, meaning the Copyright Board cannot accept Access Copyright's circuitous and twisted arguments to eliminate fair dealing anymore.

Re: Re: Response from Access Copyright

The ruling also says that it's not good enough for the copyright board to be "sorta, kinda" right but they must be right in the judicial sense. Add that to the repeated use of "large and liberal" and "broad and liberal" hammers it makes it quite clear what it is all but directing the copyright board to do.

It's not just Access Copyright that got hammered here it was SOCAN which is I believe our very own branch plant of the RIAA/MPAA.

Re: Re: Re: Response from Access Copyright (And a question)

In the Access Copyright case? I dunno... I see what you mean on some points but the dissenting opinion also endorses the reasonableness standard for the Copyright Board, and rejects some of the other stuff from the majority

Re: Re: Re: Re: Response from Access Copyright (And a question)

That's how I was reading it, too. Access Copyright seems to want to make a big deal of the 5-4 vote but looking at the entirety it doesn't look like the majority and minority are all that far apart. So if Access Canada was looking for the Court to revisit this in the near future I think they're paddling upstream in the Fraser Canyon without a paddle.

O Canada

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Re:

Haha, could you imagine the uproar that would cause if a Canadian Trade Agreement was made in a secret backroom deal to push these views on copyright onto other countries like the US.

Better yet, also hide it in a rider in lesser known bill, and try to fast track it through congress. If it was put through as it's own bill though, we'd of course need to name it something that is the opposite of what it actually does. I think the "Copyright Maximalist Act" has a nice ring to it.

Don't forget, this bill will help to "Protect the Children" by preventing "Cyber-bullying" from "Chinese espionage", "Terrorism", and "Communist" ideals!

Re:

Re: Re:

Precious little, actually. The problem with the entire levy system is once you collect the money how do you divide it up?

Based on sales? Based on who got downloaded the most in some remotely piratical way? Based on the relative sizes of the English and French markets including, say, the US and UK for English and France and other french speaking markets for what Quebec and Acadia produce?

Fairness is all very well and good and a laudable goal but just how do you come up with a formula that has a chance of working?

Re:

Perhaps you should read those judgements again. The supreme court did not say "these levies are bad because users should pay in another way" they said "these levies are bad because fair use is a user right and they do not have to pay"

The issue is not the entire idea of copyright tariffs -- it's a sensible concept in theory that could serve to make licensing a lot simpler. The issue issue is that the tariff system is a giant mess, with collection societies double- and triple- and quadruple-dipping on things, and also imposing tariffs on activities that should rightly be protected by fair dealing, all while having a terrible track record for actually redistributing that money to the rightsholders they are supposed to represent.

As for your notion that the money has to be "made back" somewhere else, sorry, there's no guaranteed sum that has to go to rightsholders - if they've been charging people for fair dealing all along, then tough shit for them. Now they'll have to make due without that money that they didn't deserve.

By the way, while the Copyright Board claims it would like to have economic evidence before imposing tariffs, it has also explicitly stated that it is happy to go ahead and impose them anyway even when there's no evidence. This is from their recent ruling that created a fun new Canadian tax on "music accompanying physical activities":

We note that our decision comes after a
lengthy and difficult process made no easier by the
lack of reliable and relevant evidence. Our
preference is to set tariffs based on strong
economic evidence presented by the parties. In this
case we were not able to do so. As stated above, in
our opinion the 2008-2012 tariff for fitness
classes is transitional. The next time we examine
Re:Sound Tariff 6.B, it would be preferable to
also have SOCAN 19 before us. We would then
be able to consider all of the relevant economic
evidence and set both of these tariffs
simultaneously.

So um, sure, we'd like to know if this is necessary at all, but whatever you can have these millions of dollars for a few years and we'll deal with it later.

Re: Re:

*sigh*.

Leigh, you don't think that the levels of "fair use" are a function of what the current copyright law says, as well as the current levels of enforcement of existing laws?

The conservative government can easily continue to re-write the rules of copyright in Canada (in part of become "ACTA compliant"), and in doing so limit the "fair use" you refer to. The fair use exists because there is no law that specifically outlaws certain file trading actions.

levies were added to CDs and other recordable media in lieu of tightening copyright laws, and was done so as part of the process to try to enrich Canadian acts at the cost of outsiders. Basically, the levies were collected, but distributed only to Canadian companies. Combined with Cancon and other rules put in place, successive federal governments found ways to finance "culture" in Canada on the backs of others, and by passing what amounts to a tax system to support private industry.

You need to go back and review the history of Cancon and the levies systems to understand how we got here today. The courts saying "you can't keep doing this as technology moves" basically tells the labels and recording companies that their side of the bargain is no longer going to be supported. So they are very likely to push to get back to what should have been done when the first levies system was proposed: decline and push for stronger copyright controls.

You can pirate you ass off in Canada because of those levies. Now that they are being limited or blocked from future application, you may have shot yourself (and your music collection) in the foot.

Re: Re: Re:

So you're saying I should embrace a broken, terrible system because you think there is danger of a backlash when it's dismantled?

No, sorry.

In both the courts and in the copyright reform bill, fair dealing is being steadily expanded. C-11 contains a bunch of new fair dealing provisions. Things are moving very much in the right direction, and your argument that we should decry that because it might result in a pushback is silly and defeatist.

Re: Re: Re:

I hate to tell you this but large parts of C-11 are, allegedly, ACTA compliant. Which may have been a waste of good time as ACTA seems to be falling apart at the seams anyway.

And I'm not going to step in your cesspool of a trap by going over Cancon where it came from and the minor detail that it's far outlived its usefulness. I'll side step around it long enough to make the minor point that the private companies in the motion picture and recording industries that have profited the most from Cancon and related levies have been, in order, American, British and French owned companies not Canadian ones.

The point is that fair dealing is a right. Levies are a privilege and always have been.

I also don't see where any of what you say makes it easier to pirate in Canada. Where it falls into the realm of fair dealing perhaps, from a Hollywood perspective, it does but mass piracy wouldn't be covered or excused under this ruling.

AUCC acted in bad faith...

It is obvious that the AUCC never negotiated in the best interests of the students but of private interests... The universities should take action against the AUCC that goes contrary to copyright law... in other words AUCC is incompetent as negotiators and fraudulently represented themselves as looking out for the interests of students and educators.